Adobe Labs has released the beta version of the Flash Player 10 codenamed Astro, the new version includes new expressive features and visual performance improvements that allow interactive designers and developers to build the richest and most immersive Web experiences.

Some of the new stuff that Astro is capable of are:
3D Effects – Easily transform and animate any display object through 3D space while retaining full interactivity. Fast, lightweight, and native 3D effects make motion that was previously reserved for expert users available to everyone. Complex effects are simple with APIs that extend what you already know.

Custom Filters and Effects - Create your own portable filters, blend modes, and fills using Adobe® Pixel Bender™, the same technology used for many After Effects CS3 filters. Shaders in Flash Player are about 1KB and can be scripted and animated at runtime.

Advanced Text Layout – A new, highly flexible text layout engine, co-existing with TextField, enables innovation in creating new text controls by providing low-level access to text offering right-to-left and vertical text layout, plus support for typographic elements like ligatures.

Enhanced Drawing API - Runtime drawing is easier and more powerful with re-styleable properties, 3D APIs, and a new way of drawing sophisticated shapes without having to code them line by line.

Visual Performance Improvements – Applications and videos will run smoother and faster with expanded use of hardware acceleration. By moving several visual processing tasks to the video card, the CPU is free to do more.

The page on the Adobe Labs has links to an videos of an interactive demo of the Flash Player 10 (* You need to install it first to see this demos).
Download the Flash Player 10 Beta (Astro) here.
So what are You waiting for go there and start the testing.

The Flash Player 10 Beta on Adobe Labs by David Gamez, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Mexico License.